Search form

Bobwhites Among Bird-a-Thon Sightings

The results of Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary’s annual Bird-a-thon tops the news for this week. A total of 119 species were observed from 6 p.m. on Friday, May 15, to 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 16. Twenty-three birders participated in this marathon Massachusetts Audubon Society event, scheduled to coincide with the peak of the northward migration.

Highlights include northern bobwhite, northern fulmar, sooty shearwater, 14 species of sandpipers and plovers, 14 species of warblers, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher. Here is the complete list of species observed on the Vineyard:

Canada goose

Mute swan

Wood duck

American black duck

Mallard

Common eider

Surf scoter

Black scoter

Red-breasted merganser

Wild turkey

Northern bobwhite

Red-throated loon

Common loon

Horned grebe

Red-necked grebe

Northern fulmar

Sooty shearwater

Northern gannet

Double-crested cormorant

Great blue heron

Great egret

Green-backed heron

Black-crowned night-heron

Turkey vulture

Osprey

Northern harrier

Cooper’s hawk

Red-tailed hawk

Merlin

Black-bellied plover

Semi-palmated plover

Piping plover

American oystercatcher

Spotted sandpiper

Greater yellowlegs

Lesser yellowlegs

Willet

Ruddy turnstone

Sanderling

Semi-palmated sandpiper

Least sandpiper

Dunlin

Short-billed dowitcher

Laughing gull

Ring-billed gull

Herring gull

Great black-backed gull

Least tern

Roseate tern

Common tern

Rock pigeon

Mourning dove

Barn owl

Eastern screech-owl

Great horned owl

Whippoorwill

Chimney swift

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Belted kingfisher

Red-bellied woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

Hairy woodpecker

Northern flicker

Eastern phoebe

Great crested flycatcher

Eastern kingbird

Red-eyed vireo

Blue jay

American crow

Horned lark

Tree swallow

Northern rough-winged swallow

Bank swallow

Barn swallow

Black-capped chickadee

Tufted titmouse

White-breasted nuthatch

Brown creeper

Carolina wren

House wren

Blue-gray gnatcatcher

Eastern bluebird

Hermit thrush

Wood thrush

American robin

Gray catbird

Northern mockingbird

European starling

Blue-winged warbler

Northern parula

Yellow warbler

Yellow-rumped warbler

Black-throated green warbler

Blackburnian warbler

Pine warbler

Prairie warbler

Bay-breasted warbler

Blackpoll warbler

Black-and-white warbler

American redstart

Ovenbird

Common yellow throat

Scarlet tanager

Eastern towhee

Chipping sparrow

Savannah sparrow

Song sparrow

Northern cardinal

Rose-breasted grosbeak

Indigo bunting

Red-winged blackbird

Common grackle

Brown-headed cowbird

Orchard oriole

Baltimore oriole

House finch

American goldfinch

House sparrow

Bird Sightings

As the long list above suggests, there are a lot of birds around now.

The most unusual of these is a sandhill crane that showed up in the fields near Black Point Pond in Chilmark. Allan Keith was the first to observe the single individual on May 13, but it has hung around, so many others have seen it. Allan found it again on the morning of May 16. Next was from Roy Riley and his daughter Libby, who saw a sandhill crane at Katama Farm on May 17, only 20 feet from the road. There Robin Bray and David Nash observed it on May 18. All these sightings are undoubtedly the same bird, as this is only the fourth time the species has been found on-Island.

Sally Anderson reports that a Nashville warbler was singing loudly near her house on May 12 and 13.

Susan Whiting observed a white-throated sparrow at her Quenames feeder on May 14.

Also on May 14, Bob and Wendy Cavanagh had a worm-eating warbler fly into a window of their North Road home. The bird did not survive and is now in Allan Keith’s freezer, and is en route to Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Mr. Keith requests that dead birds in good condition (not rotten) be put in a plastic bag and frozen. Please write the date and location found on a piece of paper and put it in the bag too. Call him and he will arrange its transport to the museum.

Whit Manter found a gadwall on Tisbury Great Pond on May 15. This bird was not found later that day after the bird-a-thon started.

Allan Keith, on the bird-a-thon for Drumlin Farm, found Acadian flycatchers near the Mill Brook at Waskosim’s Rock, the above mentioned sandhill crane near Black Point Pond, one snow goose at Crystal Lake, a sharp-shinned hawk and harlequin ducks at Squibnocket.

On May 19, Martha Moore saw five snowy egrets along Tisbury Great Pond.